Purebasic any good for 3D??

[Danny]

Hello people,

My name's Danny and I've been working with Blitz3D for the past couple years, B3D is getting old and rusty and I'm looking at PureBasic and DarkBasic as potential alternatives.

I like the general setup and I especially fancy the more advanced language features that PB has to offer. But I can't really figure out what PB has to offer on the 3D side of things. I gather it has some 3D support (the 3DEngine.dll) and one or two external 3D libraries. But all these seem very limited at first glance. I like to have DX9 level features, textures, lighting, pixel & vertex shaders, etc. I've checked out PureGDK but it would be nice to stick to 1 platform instead of 3 to get my things done.

Can anyone advice or suggest what library to use? Links to point me in the right direction?

Just a general question, has anyone ever made a 3D game using PureBasic?

All the best,

Danny

[Mistrel]

PureGDK is no different from the other engine libraries you'll find here. You're only programming for one platform (Windows) but it requires multiple licenses. If you purchase "PureGDK - Complete" through The Game Creators it includes both a PureGDK and DarkBasic Professional license as well as a stand-alone installer.

[Rook Zimbabwe]

And, of course... You can also use OGRE and iRRLICHT engines as well as Blitz 3D Libs and N3XT 3D engine as well...

N3XTD Engine: http://www.purebasic.fr/english/viewtop ... 14&t=37320

OGRE is inside the IDE anyway...

Anyone have a link for the iRRLicht thread? OR the BLitz Addon Thread?

[mpz]

Hi,

it is also possible to write your own DX9 3D library to create your own games etc. For that case you find some good DX9 example codes in the forum. Here comes some little exampels from my DX9 Engine made with purebasic: http://rapidshare.com/files/289144168/demos.zip.html (MP3D Lib is not ready now, but i work on it)

If you use an external library like DarkBasic you have a big 3D Library ready for making your games with tools but you need tu use external dll files.

Best regards Michael

[Kaeru Gaman]

if you want to buy an additional professional engine, also take a look at LeadWerks.
it comes with Imports for PureBasic.

[Danny]

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

I have no ambition to write my own 3D engine and reinvent the wheel for the 1000th time. The whole reason I want to switch is because I want to get to work straight away - with today's level of graphics and not the prehistoric DX7-only stuff Blitz has to offer I'll check out n3xt and ogre a bit more deeper, for sure..


@Mistrel: PureGDK sounds very interesting but I'm confused as to the whole license business, what I'll be getting and or needing;
Please clarify this for me: if I get the 'PureGDK - complete' package, besides then getting the two licenses you mention, must I then also purchase a seperate PureBasic license - or not?
Also, am I just obtaining licenses or also (if I want?) the complete installs for DBPro and PB respectively? And thus would I get support & upgrades for DBP & PB?

Do I also understand correctly that I will then be using DBPro's 3D Engine, using PB's language, but in "your" IDE - so to say (= the single install). Or is your package equal to a full DBPro and a full PB license & install as well?


Thanks in advance,

Danny

[Mistrel]

Please clarify this for me: if I get the 'PureGDK - complete' package, besides then getting the two licenses you mention, must I then also purchase a seperate PureBasic license - or not?
Also, am I just obtaining licenses or also (if I want?) the complete installs for DBPro and PB respectively? And thus would I get support & upgrades for DBP & PB?

Do I also understand correctly that I will then be using DBPro's 3D Engine, using PB's language, but in "your" IDE - so to say (= the single install). Or is your package equal to a full DBPro and a full PB license & install as well?

You must also purchase a license for PureBasic, which is not provided in the bundle. You can think of PureGDK as an add-on that provides additional functionality to PureBasic. It installs command libraries that allow you to compile using the DarkBasic Professional engine.

PureBasic offers a lifetime license through their website where you can download it from your account. DBP and PureGDK are also lifetime licenses (no royalties, non-expiring). Updates for DarkBasic Professional are available through The Game Creators website. Updates for PureGDK are available either from The Game Creators website or PureGDK.com, depending on where you purchased it. The updates are the same.

"PureGDK - Upgrade" is provided so people who already own DarkBasic Professional don't need to pay for it twice. It detects an existing installation and copies the files it needs to another folder. "PureGDK - Complete" is a simple all-in-one solution that includes both PureGDK and DarkBasic Professional. The installer is stand-alone, unlike the upgrade version, and does not require DBP to be pre-installed because it already comes bundled with the engine inside the installer.

Once installed PureGDK is a completely transparent add-on for PureBasic. All you do it type the commands in the IDE and compile. You use the PureBasic IDE, of course.

Here is a rotating cube in DarkBasic Professional:

Code: Select all

REM 3D rotating cube demo

SYNC RATE 60

MAKE OBJECT CUBE 1,100

DO
    XROTATE OBJECT 1,OBJECT ANGLE X(1)+0.3
    YROTATE OBJECT 1,OBJECT ANGLE Y(1)+0.5
    SYNC
LOOP

Here is a rotating cube in PureBasic with PureGDK:

Code: Select all

;/ Open a PureBasic window
OpenWindow(0,0,0,640,480,"DarkBasic Professional - PureGDK",#PB_Window_SystemMenu|#PB_Window_ScreenCentered)

;/ Initialize the PureGDK screen as a child of window ID 0
OpenDBWnd(WindowID(0),0,0,640,480)

;/ Set the sync rate to 60 frames per second
dbSyncRate(60)

;/ Make a cube
dbMakeObjectCube(1,3)

;/ Loop until the escape key is pressed or the window is closed
Repeat
  dbXRotateObject(1,dbObjectAngleX(1)+0.3)
  dbYRotateObject(1,dbObjectAngleY(1)+0.5)
  dbSync()
Until WindowEvent()=#PB_Event_CloseWindow Or dbKeyState(#VK_ESCAPE)

All of the DBP's commands are either native to PureBasic or supported by PureGDK. Here is the help file where you can browse the current command set. Over 130 commands are being added for the next release which include cloth and particle physics:

http://puregdk.com/files/upload/PureGDK.chm

Also consider that PureGDK is useful for more than just game programming. Because of its support for PureBasic's built-in GUI library and native support for the Win32 API it's possible to create development tools and non-game applications as well:

(Source code included)
http://puregdk.com/files/upload/aspect-ratio.zip



All of the functionality of DarkBasic Professional is natively supported including plugins. It also features many advanced features not supported in DarkGDK (DBP for C++) including all commands being thread-safe, true matrix and vector datatypes, engine enhancements, and the ability to draw the DBP window onto any other window for tools and application programming.

[Danny]

Thank you very much for that explanation and the examples Mistrel,

I mostly create serious (non-game) 3D applications, but need today's visual standards, and quick results, hence my preference for DBPro. However, I would prefer PureBasic for it's advanced language features, the gui/win32api support as you mentioned and several others reasons. So indeed PureGDK could be the perfect link for me..

Thanks again for clearing things up. I need to let this sink in for a bit, but don't be surprised if you get my order soon

Cheers,

Danny.

[Mistrel]

Glad to be of help. Please ask if you have any other questions.